This invention relates to the vibration testing of a communications network base station and, more particularly, to such testing which simulates the pole mounting of such a station.
A cellular telephone base station is typically mounted out-of-doors on an elevated structure to increase its line-of-sight range. Recently, a smaller cell site, called a microcell, has been developed to cover "hot spots" and "dead spots". The microcell uses less power and provides fewer channels than a "normal" cell site and was designed for smaller coverage area. It is expected that the microcells will be installed in the field on existing wooden "telephone" poles about 90-95% of the time. To verify the adequacy of the design of the microcell for this predominant application, it is desirable to conduct vibration tests on a configuration that mimics, as closely as practical, the actual pole-mounted conditions.
It would be desirable to conduct such vibration tests indoors. However, a "typical" telephone pole is a forty feet tall pole having its lower six feet extending into the ground and with its upper end connected to cable support strands strung between adjacent poles, and it is very impractical to use a thirty foot or taller pole indoors. It would therefore be desirable to provide a vibration test fixture which simulates the response of a "typical" telephone pole to the type of vibrations to which it is expected to be subjected without requiring the use of a full size pole.